Personal Growth is Infinite
Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.–Viktor Frankl
We don’t often think about it, but our most human characteristics really have no known boundaries. No known limit exists for how much knowledge the brain can absorb. No known limit exists for how many people we can love. No known limit exists for our capacity to become wiser, more loving, more spiritual, more understanding, more positive, more supportive, wiser, braver or kinder. Like the Universe itself, the reaches of man’s inner potential appear to be infinite.
There is no end point, no point at which we say, “That’s it. I’ve learned enough, grown enough, developed myself enough. I’m done now.” It is not even possible, because every day that we get up and interact with the world, something new happens, and it changes us, whether we are actively seeking change or not. The only way to be done with change is to die.
I suppose what I’m talking about is the nature of consciousness itself. And like the Universe, which seems to have no beginning and no end–you may say the Big Bang or God was its beginning, but where did It/He come from? What was here before It/Him? Whether you think there was something or there was nothing, such pondering boggles the mind–consciousness seems to have no beginning or end. You could say the beginning and end are birth and death, and while that is technically true, it does not explain how consciousness works, where it comes from, or why, while we have it, its scope appears to be infinite. Consciousness is truly greater than the sum of its physical parts, and nobody, if they’re being honest, can tell you why or how this is the case. It is as great a mystery as the origin of the Universe itself.
The scientific determinists believe that consciousness is completely reducible to its parts. It is, they believe, merely the interaction of chemicals in the brain and the causal chain of events in a person’s life. I think this infinity-of-consciousness idea is a decent anti-determinist argument. If consciousness were merely the result of physically observable interactions, then that would imply that limits exist (because all physically observable and categorizable phenomena have limits). Determinists would probably say that such limits do exist, even if they haven’t yet been discovered (which is similar to the argument for determinism itself). Maybe so. But until such limits are discovered, the theory is about as scientific as an argument for the existence of a theological God. (That is to say, not scientific at all.)
The only reason I mention this is that all attempts to put limits on human consciousness have failed, and thus they should be regarded very, very skeptically. Not only because such arguments are unprovable, which they are, but more importantly because such beliefs create limitations in our own minds–when none really exist. And if we are actively seeking growth and change, any thought of limitation is a grave hindrance.
This is not to say that consciousness is magical or infallible–let’s get this objection out of the way first. For example, consciousness can’t make us fly or read minds, it can’t teleport us to other worlds, or make us live eternally (although some might argue even with these extremes). I am only purporting that, within its realm–man’s inner realm, the world of concepts, beliefs, emotions, and spirituality–consciousness appears to be infinite. Within its realm, consciousness is, well, omnipotent. A manifestation, perhaps, of God Him (or It-) self.
It is also not to say that all people possess equal capacities for growth–which is start of the point I’ve been leading up to. We are all different. We all start at square one (birth), and we all have unique abilities and unique life experiences. Some of those experiences enhance our unique abilities, and some detract from it. Some of us are treated so horribly, we spend most of our adulthood trying to soothe, heal, and fix our consciousness. Some of us go far; some of us barely get out of the starting gate. Thus is the nature of life: it cares little for fairness or equality. We all have to accept the cards we’ve been dealt, and lamenting that fact does nothing but detract from the potential we do have.
In fact, such lamenting might possibly be the primary thing standing in the way of growth and change. While the start we get in life certainly plays a role in how far we go, it probably has a smaller role than many of us believe (perhaps another anti-determinist argument, if anyone is keeping track). Many who get rough starts triumph over them, while many who have every advantage squander them away. This is not always true; those born into poverty in third world countries are not likely to do great things with their lives–although some certainly have.
I don’t want to say that luck of the draw isn’t important. It is. Handicaps of circumstance can destroy much potential. But we can’t really blame this on the limitations of consciousness. And those of us fortunate to live in circumstances that we can change are better off getting down to the business of doing so rather than complaining about those we’re powerless over.
And here’s the fact that, once accepted, can truly transform us: we are all fortunate enough to live in circumstances that we can change. We all have enough control over our lives to positively transform ourselves. Consciousness itself makes this possible. Its infinite scope makes all situations transformable, all obstacles defeatable. Truly, where there’s life, there’s hope.
Perhaps the greatest advocate of this idea was Viktor Frankl. Dr. Frankl not only survived his experience in a Nazi concentration camp, he found in it great wisdom, meaning, and even serenity. In the midst of the everyday life horrors in the camp, Dr. Frankl had a great realization: that no matter what one’s life circumstances are, a person is still capable, through the efforts of his own consciousness, to find meaning and happiness. They could starve him, torture him, and humiliate him, but they couldn’t take his mind–his consciousness–away from him. It was his, and what he did with it was up to him. He wrote about this profound realization in the great book Mans Search for Meaning
Our life circumstances matter, and they influence who we are and what we become, but they do not have the final say. Consciousness is too powerful a force for that to be the case. No matter where we start or what our circumstances, we are all capable of infinite growth and change. Focusing on this simple truth, rather than on limitations, has the potential to transform our lives in ways we can’t possibly imagine.
If They Aren’t Consistent, They Aren’t Values
Wikipedia defines values as “broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes.” This can apply to both individuals and cultures. It defines individual (personal) values as “an internal reference for what is good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable, constructive, etc…Values generate behavior and help solve common human problems for survival by comparative rankings, the results of which provide answers to questions of why people do what they do and in what order they choose to do them.” Cultural values are those largely shared by a culture’s members, often identifiable by “noting which people receive honor and respect.”
In short, values help individuals and cultures (which are really just groups of individuals who share a similar background) determine what’s important and why, which in turn determines actions. Whether aware of them or not, values–both those foisted on us (cultural) and those we choose (personal)–underlie all of our thoughts, habits, opinions, and behaviors. Values are, in essence, the building blocks of all the choices we make in life.
It follows, then, that the more carefully we choose our values, the better our choices will be. Better choices will inevitably result in a better life, “better” in this case meaning more likely to achieve the outcomes that are the most important to us–those outcomes with the most value, that is.
I think this is all fairly well understood by most people: Values, consciously chosen and deliberately acted upon, are integral to a life well-lived. But what about applying those values consistently, in all areas of life, across all situations?
This is a little trickier. Yet, I believe, just as important, because without the capacity to apply one’s values consistently, it is questionable how well understood or deeply held a value really is–or if it is, in fact, really a value at all.
What really got me thinking about this is listening to people’s political opinions. Without getting into political beliefs, which aren’t the point, I’ve noticed that many people, including “expert” pundits and even politicians themselves, hold wildly inconsistent political values. As an example, let’s take individual freedom. Most Americans would agree that individual freedom is an important cultural value: that people should be free to live as they choose as long as they don’t infringe upon other people’s right to do the same. This value is so important, it is the primary founding principle of the country, guaranteed in writing in our Constitution, and the basis from which all other American freedoms and rights are derived, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, freedom to own private property, the right to vote, the right to a fair trial, the right to bear arms, and so many others.
Americans may differ on which of these guaranteed rights and freedoms are the most important, but few would argue that our freedom is absolutely essential to the American way of life, to “the pursuit of happiness.” Yet almost everywhere you turn, you hear people stating opinions that are completely antithetical to the idea of personal freedom. The classic example of this (for me, anyway) are drug laws. Today, the idea of “legal” and “illegal” drugs is so commonplace and accepted, few people question the morality of why possession of certain drugs risks imprisonment. Yet before the late 19th century, the idea of an illegal substance was unheard of. All drugs were legally obtainable because people were considered capable of being stewards of their own bodies–further, we are Constitutionally guaranteed the right to be. How and why this changed is a fascinating study in how politicians usurped the rights of American citizens, and how it paved the way for the gradual, continuous erosion of personal freedom now so ubiquitous that most no longer notice it for what it is.
If you ask people what they think about “illegal” drugs, most will say something like “Well, maybe marijuana should be legal, but drugs like heroin and cocaine should be illegal.” They will base this opinion on the fact that these drugs are “dangerous” and that keeping them illegal saves lives. This is absolutely not true, of course; it’s actually easier to obtain illegal drugs than legal (prescription) ones, particularly for minors; the “war on drugs,” after spending hundreds of billions of dollars, has done next to nothing to stop the flow of narcotics into the country, much less squelch people’s desire to use them. But the larger point is that such a view, held by the majority of Americans, is in direct opposition to the value of individual freedom.
There are many other examples of this. People who claim to value freedom of speech oppose pornography. People who claim to value the pursuit of happiness oppose gay marriage. People who claim to value freedom of religion want Muslim mosques restricted. People who claim to value civil liberties support the Patriot Act. And on and on. Inconsistency, and yes, hypocrisy, in political values is so widespread and normal now that it is barely recognized anymore as such.
People often lay claim to values until those values clash with an opinion they hold, then chuck it out the window like a piece of trash. But if you only hold a value until it applies to someone or something you don’t like, then it isn’t really a value at all. It’s just a convenient opinion not tied to any deeper meaning, and a poorly understood one, at that. Because often, the test of our principles is how well we’re able to uphold them when applied to aspects of it which we find distasteful. We may hate pornography, for example, but if we don’t understand that it is protected by our right to free speech, then we aren’t really standing against pornography but rather, against the principle of free speech.
This idea is equally important in our personal lives because our values determine our actions and ultimately the outcome of our lives. What we value makes us who we are. If those values are well thought out and consistent, we’ll have conviction in applying them, confidence in their rightness, and a clear path to achieving our goals; we will also be credible, dependable, principled, people whom others respect and trust. Conversely, without consistent values, we’ll have or be none of these things. Our beliefs and actions will shift with the prevailing winds and we’ll mimic popular opinion, guessing at what’s right and at what we want. Inconsistent values are not values at all.
Living a principled life means understanding your values to the point that you can apply them consistently and universally. If you come up against an idea that seems to clash with your values, it is not the idea you must question or dismiss, but rather, the value itself. If you don’t learn to do this, the result will be an illogical, conflicted worldview that lacks grounding in any deeper principles and has little power to propel you successfully forward. Just because this is the norm today doesn’t make it right, and certainly not a desirable way to go through life.
Stop Complaining!
The other day I overheard part of a conversation that stopped me cold and made me see an un-pretty trait in myself. (I wasn’t eavesdropping; the discussion had nothing to do with me. But I was also unable to avoid hearing what I heard.) One of the men was doing most of the talking, the other most of the listening. The listener would ask a question, and the talker would go off on a long tangent that even I, in my limited knowledge of the subject matter, could tell was not a useful answer. The listener seemed to be trying to solve a problem or set a strategy for some business issue, while the talker seemed bound and determined to avoid solving the problem or setting a strategy. He did so in a number of ways. He changed the subject; he told a joke or story; he compared the situation to one in the past; he agreed that it was a good question but failed to elaborate with an answer. Mostly, he blamed circumstances and other people for his situation.
Nothing was his fault. If he looked bad, it was because somebody else was unavailable, or incompetent, or uninterested, or unwilling to do their job. He painted himself as the masterful genius who was constantly being let down by those less talented people he had no choice but to depend on. The more the listener tried to re-direct the talker to the problem at hand, the further away they seemed to get from finding a solution. Finally, the listener begged off, saying he’d see what he could do to help. Even though he showed no sign of frustration, it was apparent to me he’d given up. He couldn’t get through to this guy.
Maybe it was the contrast in the two men’s styles, but something about the conversation struck me hard. The listener was totally focused on solving a problem, on accomplishing something useful with the conversation. The talker was focused on making himself look good. The listener saw himself as a responsible agent. The talker saw himself as a victim. The incongruity was jarring.
In the quiet following the conversation, the message “Stop complaining!” flashed in my head like a neon sign. I’d like to say I identified with the listener, but the truth is that I identified with the talker just as much. I do believe that people are responsible for solving their own problems, and I’d like to think I do this to the best of my ability. But in the complainer I also heard myself. Oh my god, I thought, I do that. I do that! And I realized that, even though I do take responsibility for my actions, I often take the long way around to it, after a fair amount of whining, bitching, balking, irrititation, and, yes, complaining.
I never thought of myself as a complainer, but of course, I am. How could I not be, when I grew up with two of the most negative, mean-spirited, judgmental, shaming examples a child could have? I remember once as a teenager my boyfriend told me, after picking me up for a date, that my parents talked worse about people than anyone else he’s ever known. I’m not blaming my parents for my unattractive trait; I know it’s mine to deal with. But having grown up with complaining being so second nature, so much a backdrop in my life, I see now that it would be a difficult thing to see in myself. The good news is that I have seen it in a way I never had before, so I now have the self-awareness to do something about it. The bad news is that these lessons never, ever stop coming. But that’s not really so bad; I would rather know than not know, because this is the only way I become capable of change.
And sometimes, complaining is actually the agent of change. Sometimes, we need to “complain.” If viewed objectively, with kindness and understanding toward yourself, complaining can be the beginning of greater self-awareness. When we complain, it’s because we feel powerless and frustrated. Complaints could well be manifestations of underlying issues that need to be dealt with. Such complaints, when voiced and paid attention to, can lead us to solutions. It is only when complaining becomes chronic, lacking the desire for a solution, or about pointless, minor things that really have no relevance, that it is problematic–and decidedly unattractive. So while freeing myself of the need to complain is a positive goal, it’s also helpful to be aware that sometimes, complaining means I need to address some deeper source of frustration in my life.
That guy will never know what he did for me. Seeing myself in him was unnerving, but I’m so glad I did. I would like to remove chronic complaining from my repertoire entirely. It serves no purpose except to keep me in a negative state of mind and divert me from solving whatever problem I don’t want to deal with. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but keeping negative thoughts to myself and letting them die the quiet, unattended death they deserve is certainly a goal worthy of daily renewal.
So thanks for that, stranger!
The Importance of Reading Books
When I was thirteen, I got to spend a month on a horse farm with a couple of other girls working for a woman in exchange for riding lessons and the chance to soak up as much of her equine knowledge as I possibly could. At the time, I was having a passionate love affair with all things horse, so this was a dream come true. She was a careful and deliberate teacher, and she started by quizzing us on how much we knew. I found myself having to hold back from answering to give the other girls a chance. But when I didn’t answer, there tended to be dead silence, with all eyes shifting toward me. After a couple of days of this, the teacher, a bit exasperated, said, “The difference between you two and Kitty is that Kitty reads.” I was embarrassed, but she was right, of course. I was a voracious reader, saving up my pennies and birthday checks to buy books about horses. And not just stories–although I read those, too–but informative, how-to books. Books not only about riding, but also about equine health, tack (saddles and bridles), world breeds, history, and anything else I could find. By the time I was thirteen, I’d already amassed quite a collection of books and had read them all cover to cover, some several times over. I still own most of that collection today.
The other girls loved horses as much as I did, but they didn’t share my love of reading. And because of that, I was several steps ahead of them, horse-knowledge-wise. Having grown up the way I did, at the time I found this to be a source of shame (anything that set me apart was a source of shame), but I now see it as a trait that has served me well all my life and will continue to do so. When I got sober and began recovering from my invalidating childhood and all the issues I have because of it, I once again read voraciously. Self-help books get a bad rap, and certainly some of them are better than others, but I was hungry for understanding and self-awareness, and reading was one way I immersed myself in the healing process. I read about addiction and recovery, shame, anger, codependency, the inner child, toxic relationships, spirituality, and the treatment process itself. From Dale Carnegie to the Dalai Lama, I read nearly every type of book on self-awareness that I could find. I also read psychology and philosophy books (which I still read today). And as with horses when I was a kid, I found myself (somewhat embarrassingly) light years ahead of friends who’d entered recovery around the same time as I had.
Reading is, of course, a great source of knowledge, and reading books about topics you love is one of the greatest intellectual services you can do for yourself. I specify books here because there is a great tendency, in today’s world of electronic media at our fingertips, to read infobytes on news sites and opinions on blogs and think we’re educating ourselves. When done in a vacuum, though, nothing could be further from the truth–and few things bring us further away from true knowledge than the mistaken idea that we already have it.
Certainly, there is a wealth of good information on the Internet. I use the Internet all the time for research and learning. But I am careful about what facts I choose to accept–particularly when those facts are someone’s opinion, and even more particularly when those opinions are ones I am predisposed to agree–or disagree–with. I always cross-reference information with other sites, check dates, read comments, and if possible, investigate the author’s authority, either by finding neutral bios about him, reading other things he’s written, or both.
But if reading on the Internet is they only kind of reading we’re doing, or even much of the kind of reading we’re doing, we run up against a number of problems, problems that are going to prevent us from being really rational, really capable critical thinkers. To start with, the Internet lacks credibility. Most of the bloggers on the Internet are sharing opinions, largely uninformed, and many of the informational websites have larger agendas (a political, social, or religious bias, for example). The Internet may be the first truly egalitarian platform ever created, and this is in many ways a good thing. But with the level playing field resulting from that egalitarianism comes built-in problems. It gives everybody the opportunity to share their thoughts, regardless of validity or merit. When you first find a website, there is no way to know whether its author(s) are knowledgeable or ignorant except by reading its content and deciding for yourself (in a process like the one I described above). And since few people are experts but all people have opinions, it is far more likely, in an egalitarian scenario, that you are going to find an ignorant opinion rather than a knowledgeable assessment; this is simply the math of the Internet.
Compounding the problems of the egalitarian platform is the fact that the ignorant and opinionated tend to find each other and use each other to reinforce their beliefs, often in ways that sound authoritative and convincing. Google “astral projection” or “law of attraction” to see what I mean. You will get a Wikipedia entry, a handful of debunkers, and thousands of sites claiming knowledge and expertise. And most of this pseudo-science junk is presented with chilling conviction.
So not only is it difficult to find good, neutral information on the Internet, but after a steady diet of Internet reading, it can also become difficult to tell the difference between good information and garbage. Egalitarianism is a positive in many situations, but if you are truly seeking to learn, it can make for some rough going; and even though we might say we know that what we read on the Internet may lack credibility, if it is the bulk of what we read, it is still the bulk of what forms our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions.
The biggest problem, however, with getting most of your information from the Internet and other sources which tend to lack depth and expertise–such as television reporting and, to a somewhat lesser degree, newspapers and most news magazines–is that they provide no larger context to classify the information. If you don’t possess some background knowledge about political systems, economics, and history, for example, how are you going to interpret a blog post about, say, the upcoming presidential election? How are you going to discern different political agendas by different writers? How are you going to know if what you’re reading is factually accurate? How are you going to understand and categorize the writer’s assertions? How are you going to form your opinions?
It is alarming to me how many people–and not strangers or people in a general sense, but people I know personally–form their opinions around what they “like” and around what “feels good” to them or what “sounds like it makes the most sense.” These opinions are formed in a vacuum, without drawing on a deeper pool of knowledge, and are usually made with little effort to connect them to each other, much less to a bigger picture. Many people, for example, would be astonished to learn that there are long-standing historical, sociological, philosophical, and of course medical contexts around which the debate about socialized health care can–and should–be framed; fewer still would be interested in making an effort to understand the complex relationships among these disciplines before forming an opinion about the right and wrong of them. The result is a head full of disjointed, disconnected factoids that form a fragmented worldview rather than contribute to a cohesive understanding. Few want to be bothered with the work of forming such understanding. They’re content with their opinions and beliefs being reinforced by others in closed loops with similar fragile thought structures. And we’re back where we started.
Facts do fit together. There are patterns and similarities and redundancies all over the planet which, when looked at from a consistent contextual framework, make far more sense than they do when seen as separate events. Possessing underlying knowledge not only creates a world that makes more sense (even if that sense is not pleasing to behold, as it frequently is not), it also arms us with a sort of shorthand with which we can categorize the infobytes and opinions we come across every day. Having historical and philosophical understanding of the world you live in–or at least a few small pieces of it that interest you most–requires some initial effort, absolutely. But in the long run, it offers the quickest and most accurate way to assess and categorize these myriad, often confusing factoids. Conversely, without such understanding we have no way to assess and categorize. Enter our likes, dislikes, and feelings.
In short, knowledge is power. And the knowledge I am talking about can only be gotten by in-depth study of a topic, an effort to learn and think and classify and understand–which, by doing, makes you better at learning, thinking, classifying, and understanding. The ability to do this in one area of study translates to all areas, and no such efforts are ever without value. Undertaking the study of horses when I was a kid foreshadowed my ability to undertake the study of self-improvement as a young adult; both of these, as well as every other study I have undertaken in my life, has made me a better student, a better conversationalist, a better employee, a better citizen, and an all-around more confident person. I don’t have to be right about everything; I just have to be open-minded, willing to learn–and able to tell the difference between my knowledge and my emotions.
Learning is a way of life we must choose. Much like physical fitness, mental fitness requires commitment and effort. And much like physical fitness, it’s easy to let ourselves slide into complacency. But unlike the obvious results of being physically fit, mental fitness is trickier. It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking we know something about a topic when we really know very little. If you find yourself having strong opinions, yet haven’t done any in-depth study on a topic, you might want to think twice before opening your mouth; chances are you’re just exercising your egalitarian rights to speak your thoughts, however incomplete they might be.
Consumerism and Spirituality
As we who live in mostly free, mostly Christian countries come up for air after the season that drowns us in materialistic excess, it seems a fitting time to consider the greatly misunderstood, positive connection between consumerism and spirituality.Hold the phone–am I saying there’s a link between materialistic “greed” and spirituality? Other than that they are opposite ends of the spectrum of human desire? Well, yes, I believe there is. Furthermore, I believe that pondering this relationship is a useful exercise, because denying or ignoring it can leave us confused about two very basic, very important human pursuits: spirituality (that is, becoming a more whole person), and “worldly” success, which everybody has an innate drive toward (however he may happen to define it).
This idea is nothing new. Robert Pirsig wrote an entire book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I have always liked beautiful things. I love the sheen of expensive fabric and how it drapes luxuriously; I love the heft and solidity of a well-made object (such as an iPhone); I love the styling and tight feel of German cars; I love supple leather and well-designed tools and houses with open spaces and natural light and lots of granite, wood, and brick. I can’t afford all of these things, but I love them. Or perhaps more accurately, I recognize their quality as somehow soothing to my soul.
I used to worry about my affinity for nice things. I knew a few of my friends raised their eyebrows when I bought a used BMW instead of a new Toyota for the same price (but they hadn’t driven it!). I knew some people thought I was too “materialistic” when I spent some of the money from selling my house on a hand-made gold watch (but, oh, how cool!). I knew not everybody was wiling to buy Apple products when Microsoft produced similar ones at half the price (or less). Am I a snob, I asked myself? Do I care too much about what other people think of me? A friend once told me she thought I was trying to “buy my self-esteem.” Was she right? Certainly, people in my working class neighborhood looked a bit askew at me when I came home in my shiny German car.
No, I decided, after much deliberation. She was wrong. I was not a snob, and I was not trying to buy self-esteem through material possessions. I just appreciated beautiful things more than most people I knew. More to the point, I realized the significance of surrounding yourself with as much beauty and quality as you can, every day, whenever possible. There is a joy in using well made tools, in wearing well made clothes, in the choice to own quality objects when it is so easy to own cheap, poorly-made, badly designed shit. I would rather own one quality object than 100 cheap ones, no matter what other people might think of me.
Many people get this exactly backward. I know sooo many people whose houses are full to the brim with cheap plastic crap. It’s easy to do, since we are inundated and saturated with advertisements for cheap plastic crap. Consumerism has become a dirty word, synonymous with Wal-Mart, Costco, Best Buy, and Ikea, all of whom offer great deals on household goods, but offer very, very little in the way of quality. Capitalism has created the freest, richest economy ever in existence, an economy where even people of average income can own quality objects. But instead of buying beauty and quality, most people buy cheap plastic crap. In fact, the idea of quality and beauty in everyday objects seems to be a rarely considered factor in purchasing decisions these days. In our “throw-away society,” this type of consumerism really does deserve the title of “greed”: owning for the sake of owning, without any deeper connection to ourselves or to the meaning we are all seeking (whether aware of it or not). This widely accepted buying mentality appeals to our baser desires and completely misses the possibilities that owning things has to offer. Nobody should feel bad about wanting to have nice things; it’s part of being human. But we should make an effort to understand how our natural attraction to beauty and quality differs from greed, and try to know which impulse we are acting on.
I don’t have a problem with thriftiness. People should buy what they can afford. But I think it’s sad that people will rarely even consider owning fewer things in order to own more beautiful ones. I think in ignoring this, the most important option a wealthy economy has to offer, people are, in a very real way, ignoring a significant aspect of their own humanity: their built-in, inherent recognition of beauty and quality, a recognition which, when exercised, elevates us to new ways of being, seeing and interacting with the world.
Consumerism, like everything else in life, is yet another path to spiritual wholeness (or just wholeness, if you prefer). Objects do have some power to elevate or deflate us, even to spark recognition of the divine in everyday life (however you care to define that). In fact, I believe this is the very purpose of art–to create a pause that shifts our perspective to greater, higher, more satisfying, more all-inclusive ways of seeing. If you’ve ever been inside a great cathedral or seen great art in person, you know the sense of awe these things call forth. But let us remember that we don’t have to go to a church or a museum to have this experience. We can all own at least a few beautiful things that are a constant and joyous reminder of what’s really important, what we really want, and who, at our deepest levels, we really are.
Those Who Don’t Learn From the Past Are Doomed to Repeat It
If you told my friend’s brother this, he would horribly offended. He hasn’t distanced himself from their parents the way my friend has, but he still considers them to be people not worth emulating. If he realized how much he was like their father, and how much his wife is like their mother, he would devastated. (And I don’t know how people manage to find spouses that re-create their parents’ marriage, but many do. It is a fascinating topic.)
The truth is, we are all like our parents. Our only choice is whether to be so consciously, or to be so unconsciously. If we are unconscious of how we have absorbed their lessons and learned to imitate their behavior, then we are likely to take on the worst of their behavior in a state of not-so-blissful unawareness. If, however, we recognize the inevitability of being like our parents, then we have more choice about what we emulate and what we do not.
If we had good parents, parents who were decent people, who loved us, and who tried to do the next right thing, then being like our parents isn’t a big deal. In fact, it might feel good to be told we were like our mother or father (I wish I knew what this felt like!). But if our parents were unloving or abusive, then the inevitability of being like them can sound horrifying.
So horrifying, in fact, that many of us spend our adulthood trying to not be like them, trying to fight our inevitable fate. In so doing, we often end up even more enmeshed inthe family system because all of our decisions are still in reaction to it. Trying to avoid our fate is just about as bad as being unaware of it.
I spent many years trying not to be like my parents. One day, I was devastated to realize that I was, in fact, very much like them. I had the same poor impulse control, the same anger issues, the same bouts of depression, the same self-destructive streak. Much of this, I realized, was beyond my control. These traits had been imprinted in me long before I had the power to resist them (and were perhaps even biological).
After a period of deep mourning, I realized that fighting the inevitable was futile. Instead, I learned that self-awareness was the key. The more I understood my behavior, its root causes and what I expected to gain from it, the more I was able to free myself from the prison that once felt so impenetrable. Being like my parents wasn’t so bad, I discovered, as long as I understood and accepted my lot in life.
Paradoxically, acceptance was, as it is in so many life situations, the key to change. For only by accepting my fate was I able to be at peace with it. And once I was at peace with it, it lost its power to control me–and I was free. Fighting it fed its power, while accepting it starved it. Only when I came to terms with who I was, the good the bad and the ugly, was I able to transcend it.
And the truth is, being like our parents doesn’t have to be horrifying. Your father may have used his anger to hurt people, but you can use yours to help people. Your mother may have been a passive-aggressive doormat, but you can turn this into a real sense of compassion for others. I even learned that I had inherited some good traits, such as a love of books and learning and the ability to think for myself.
It’s all in how you look at it.
But looking at it is key. Because if you don’t make a conscious effort to be aware of your personality traits, one day you will wake up and realize you’ve become your mother or your father. If this doesn’t disturb you, great. But if it does, then a little bit of self-discovery will do wonders for your peace of mind.
Reverse Nostalgia: Why We Rehash the Past
I have noticed that this happens with a lot of people who share invalidating backgrounds. We never seem to get tired of telling, and listening to, the stories that shaped who we are. You’d think we would want to forget these things, to move on, to focus on the positive, to live in the present rather than the past. And mostly, we do stay out of the past most of the time. But when we get together with the people who know our histories, there is often a powerful urge to regurgitate it over and over and over.
I don’t have a judgment about this one way or the other; it’s just something a lot of us seem to do. But I got to wondering why this is so.
One simple reason is that it’s common ground. It’s a way we connect with each other. We may not be very involved in each other’s adult lives and have gone our separate ways. We may not have a lot in common in the present, and we may flail about for topics of conversation and ways to feel comfortable with each other. But we always have a past that connects us, and we can always fall back on it if all else fails. When we talk about a shared past, we renew a very old, very strong bond, and we feel close again, even if we no longer are.
This is true for happy and unhappy pasts alike, though, so it doesn’t fully explain the rehashing of painful memories. I think the reasons for such rehashing go deeper.
I think maybe it’s a sort of reverse nostalgia. We want to relive the past not because we enjoyed it, but to try and make sense of it. We tell all those stories over and over and over because we are trying to fit them into some scheme or worldview that we can make sense of. We are trying to figure out why we were treated badly when we were young and unable to defend ourselves. We are, in essence, trying to understand the injustice that was done to us, and how we could have been betrayed by the people who were supposed to love us and keep us safe.
There isn’t room in the human psyche for such injustice. People are biologically wired for self-preservation, and when you’re a child, that means being dependent on the adults in your life. So when those adults hurt us rather than nurture us, it defies our biological wiring; it literally makes no sense. But, also out of self-preservation, we are driven to try and make sense of it anyway. We can’t help it; giving up on making sense of it means, in a very real way, giving up on our innate self-preservation instinct. To accept that we were treated badly means accepting that on some level, our parents didn’t care if we lived or died.
It isn’t that simple, of course. Along with the indifference, abuse, and invalidation came at least a minimum amount of nurturing; if it hadn’t, we wouldn’t be around to talk about the other. But this only adds to the confusion of trying to sort out the past. And it can be hard to accept that both things are true: that yes, our parents nurtured us enough to reach adulthood, and yes, they were also in some ways very un-nurturing.
But it is never the nurturing part that we need to make sense of. It is the other, and because it is utterly nonsensical–that is, it goes against everything we know, need, and are wired for–we are stuck with a largely unsolvable puzzle. Yes, there are rational reasons why people hurt their children, but they are complex and messy and often tightly kept secrets. And even if we reach the point of intellectual understanding (“I know now that my father abused me because his father abused him,” for example), it can take much, much longer to arrive at an emotional peace about it–to accept the past as it is and give up trying to change it, to know to our core that it wasn’t our fault, to forgive, and yes, even to find some gratitude for the painful pasts that so deeply shaped our lives.
Many of us never quite get there.
But we keep trying because we are compelled to do so, even if we aren’t aware that that’s what we’re doing. So families get together, and the rehashing continues, a decades-long conversation that seems to have no resolution and no end.
And you know what? This is just fine. Because as long as we’re still trying to make sense of a nonsensical past, the rehashing will and should continue. Verbalizing emotional pain is healing; by putting it out into the world, we lighten its burden. We feel validated, and we feel less alone, and we feel better. No, it isn’t necessarily good to keep going over the same old ground ad infinitum, the same old complaints and grudges, without some effort to come to terms with them. But I think that doing this is the effort to come to terms, to heal, to become more whole. And no matter how far we get with it, the effort itself is proof of our commitment to our own self-preservation; it is, in a very real way, proof of our self love, even if it may not feel that way.
This is the time of year families see a lot of each other. So if you have a family that likes to rehash the past, don’t feel bad, and don’t try to resist the urge to participate in the griping. Instead, surrender to it, and participate with the full awareness that this is part of the healing process. Know that there is a purpose to what you’re doing, and that if you stay present with it long enough, paying attentions to your feelings and trying to figure out why they’re there, that purpose will eventually become clear. This is the first step to someday no longer needing to engage in the reverse nostalgia that demands so much of our attention and energy.
It’s Not About the Past
This decision to create distance has been validated over and over for me whenever I do get close to my family; this happened again for me just this week. I am so glad I no longer feel obligated to spend the holidays, or any other time, with people who are soul-sapping for me to be around. Sometimes I feel guilty, and always I wish it were different. I know they are hurting people, but I also know now I can’t help them, and that it is agonizing for me to try. I have accepted the way it is and no longer need to pretend it is something else.
The key word here is “is.” Present tense. When children grow up and become self-loving enough to create distance from their invalidating past, the people who are part of that past, primarily parents, tend to always look to it–the past–for the reasons. I know my own parents (now just my father) believe that my sisters and I are hanging on to slights and grudges that happened thirty or forty years ago, that we are still nursing wounds that should have long ago healed. They think I am bitter and angry and stuck in a past that no longer exists, that I have given it far too much power to frame my life and my choices.
They are wrong.
It is not about the past. It is about the present. It is about the simple truth that these people who hurt me when I was small haven’t changed. They are still the same people they were then, the same broken, hurtful, invalidating, pathologically narcissistic people they have always been. I don’t keep my distance because I’m stuck in a painful past; I keep my distance because of a still highly unpleasant (some would say “toxic”) present.
The evidence for this is overwhelming. My father, though now an old man, is still drinking. He is still uninterested in my life. He projects the same negative energy, the same hostility, the same indifference that he always has. The same goes for the other people from my ancient past who’ve hurt me. And I know they are the same because they’ve made no attempt to make things right or, in fact, to do anything differently at all. When I have contact with them, the dynamic is exactly how it has always been. Their treatment and expectations of me are as if no time has passed at all.
People who want things to be different don’t behave this way. If they’d had any epiphanies about themselves or our relationship, if they wanted things to be different, I would know. I have had enough experience by now to know the difference between emotionally honest people who make mistakes, and insincere people who have no intentions of changing. Sadly, most of my family members fall into the latter category.
It is sad, but it isn’t surprising. People who hurt vulnerable children have to live with themselves, after all. They have to find a way to rationalize their behavior, to somehow make it okay in their heads. Otherwise, they’d have to look at themselves; otherwise, they’d have to change. And we all know how hard change is. So instead of confronting their own demons and taking responsibility for them, they continue to project them onto other people. They may be a bit more careful about doing so than when their children were small, but unless there has been an admission of wrongdoing and a sincere effort at change, the behavior persists. Sadly, because change is so hard, and requires more self-awareness than most people hardened by their wrongdoings possess, these patterns are likely to continue indefinitely.
It is not about the past; it is about the present. I am not bitter or angry anymore (although it took me several years to work through these feelings). Today I have only good will for my parents (and have told them so). But today I also understand that letting certain people into my life is not a requirement of good will. For my own sanity, I have to love some people from a distance.
The Test of True Love
All because they haven’t subjected their relationship to one simple little test.
This test is so simple, so obvious, and so easy to assess that I’m amazed I haven’t thought of it before this. I mean, I have thought of it, but only in vague terms, like sort of a background issue, when in actuality it is a foreground issue of the most pertinent kind. It is the be-all, end-all summation of whether a relationship is “good,” “healthy,” and “right.” If your relationship passes this test, then you have a good foundation for a future together. If it doesn’t, then no amount of time, patience, effort, or heartache is likely to make a difference.
Here is the test: Ask yourself two simple questions. First, do I love my partner just the way he/she is? Second, does my partner love me just the way I am?
That’s it. If you can be honest with yourself in your answer (the biggest “if” involved in this little experiment), then you will know what to do, even if it is not the action you were hoping for.
Why is this test so important? Because the test of true caring is whether we love, and are loved by, a person who thinks we’re okay just the way we are. This is not to say this person has an unrealistic view of who we are, or vice versa; just the opposite. He sees us how we are, faults and all, and accepts us anyway. And just as importantly, we feel the same way about him–he isn’t perfect, but he is perfectly alright just as he is. There is no need to try to change him or improve him.
In other words, you and your partner like each other. You’re friends. If you don’t both meet this simple requirement, a long-term relationship will make you both miserable.
One reason this simple gauge is so often overlooked, I think, is rooted in our childhood conditioning. Many of us grew with parents who taught us that we needed to behave in certain ways to get their approval, that our lovability was tied to our performance. Some of us even learned that no matter what we did, parental approval was never quite going to happen; such approval was a moving target, and even if we managed to meet a stated requirement, that requirement was quickly changed to something else.
It is not just abusive parents who do this. Tying approval to performance is something all parents do in an effort to teach their kids right and wrong, and in many situations, it’s a valid approach. But basic love and acceptance should never be up for grabs in this way. When it is, children learn that they need to act a certain way in order to feel lovable, and they learn to see other people conditionally, too. This is disastrous not only for their relationships, but also for their self-esteem.
A conditional sense of love and low self-esteem can cause many problems, as we know; one is that people have limited abilities to judge what kind of relationship they want or how to get it. They tend to be focused primarily either on finding attachment or approval, or in seeking “projects” rather than partners–people they believe they can transform into the perfect mate, just as their parents tried to transform them into the perfect child (both of which are, of course, non-existent). In both cases, “fixing” is the focus, either yourself or the other person. Fixing will re-create childhood circumstances, which we subconsciously see as a “second chance” to prove our lovability. It is unlikely to result in a happy, long-term partnership.
Since all parents are imperfect, all of us reach adulthood with some measure of unlovability issues. The question is not whether we have them, but rather, to what degree we have them. (And this realization is best followed up by asking what we want to do about them, but that is another topic.) For the same reason (i.e., that we believe we are unlovable), if we are lucky enough to find someone who loves us for who we are, just as we are, and whom we feel the same about, all of these impulses to fix or be fixed just sort of heal themselves. It is incredibly validating to be accepted, simply and wholly, for who we are. It is poignant, rich, and wonderful. It is, I think, the key to healing all those old wounds (which is why therapy can be so powerful: it is the experience of completely non-judgmental acceptance by another person). It is something that all humans deserve, yet few of us actually find. And because it is so rare yet so simple, many people can go through life never comprehending that that is what they’ve been looking for all along.
If you’re questioning your relationship, or questioning your what you want, or you feel unsure about what constitutes happiness with another person, this simple little test is a good starting point. If you’re able to answer it honestly, the decisions that result may be hard ones, but they will be the beginning not only of finding “real” love, but of discovering real self-love, as well.
How Do You Spend Your Time?
We may profess to love our children, our spouses, our work, or our spirituality, deeply, but the proof of this is in how much time we devote to the thing we say we love. Do we spend more time playing with our children than we do watching sports? Do we spend more time working, or chatting with friends on Facebook? Do we meditate, or do we nap? Do we read, or do we go shopping? Do we watch documentaries, or do we watch sit-coms?
The pull of what I call the non-challenging is strong for most people. We need the down time of fun, mindless activity to recharge. And there is nothing wrong with relaxing and enjoying yourself, or with having a variety of activities in your life. That is not what I’m talking about.
Years ago, I was standing with a group of women once, chatting after a meeting. The subject turned to grocery shopping, and one woman began pontificating–lecturing, almost–about how important it was to her to eat organic food, how she only shopped at whole food markets, and how she was struggling to get her husband to do the same. She was very adamant about how important it was to her to put only high-quality, healthy, politically correct food into her body, and about how important she thought it was for the rest of us to arrive at the same conclusion. But as she was talking, she was–and this is the absolute god’s honest truth–eating a bag of corn chips from a vending machine! And she had no idea how ridiculous she sounded.
This is what I mean about paying attention to how we spend our time. It can tell us a lot about ourselves. This woman really believed that she was committed to eating only healthy food, even as she stuffed her face with junk food. Like her, many of us really believe things about ourselves not because they’re true, but because they’re what we want to believe. Taking an honest look at how we spend our time can expose many surprising facts about ourselves. We may not like all of them, but knowing the truth is a better, more honest, more loving, more tolerant, more forgiving way to go through life. And it feels better, even if the process of becoming more self aware hurts a little.
I struggle with writing. I’m lucky if I get in four solid hours of writing a day, and I’m trying to make a living at it. I love writing, but it’s hard, and it takes a lot out of me. One day when I was feeling bad about myself, I remembered this Scott Peck quote, and I felt just awful. Am I fooling myself? Do I just believe I love writing and secretly hate it? Or am I just lazy?
But I know I love writing, even if I struggle with it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, though, and I realized, after a great bit of self-reflection, that yes, I have to push myself, but I also have to be honest about my own limitations. I’m not lazy, but I am easily overwhelmed, and I struggle with believing that I can be successful at something I love. Because of my upbringing (and this is said not to place blame, merely to understand), I will always be easily overwhelmed, will have difficulty seeing myself as a successful person, and will have trouble believing in my own abilities. Writing has been an uphill battle for me–but that I’m able to take it on at all is nothing short of a miracle, or at least a testament to the great amount of work I’ve done on myself over the last twenty years. Many people who grew up as I did spend their lives struggling with depression, anxiety, addiction, abusive relationships, and worse. They never get out of the starting gate. And sadly, this is a large number.
So there are caveats. We don’t have to spend all of our time doing the things we love; sometimes, it just isn’t possible. And we don’t all have to want to change the world to feel okay about ourselves; sometimes we just want to enjoy ourselves, and that’s okay. The important thing is to arrive at honest conclusions about how we want to spend our time–the only time we have!–so we can lovingly lead ourselves down the best possible path, even if the going is sometimes slow.